Insomnia and Confessions
by JustClem
Summary: Yang wakes up alone. Surrounded by friends and family, but alone. She walks to the depths of the woods to find a sobbing Blake. A conversation emerges that entails of dark confessions, unravelling truths, and in-between, lost to the wind, propositions of love. She learns that the best kind of companies are the ones suffering as badly as she is.


**Author's Note:**

**It honestly surprises me to know that I've not posted this story on FFNet yet, considering that this is a RWBY story and RWBY stories are more popular in this site than in Ao3. I hope you'll enjoy!**

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Yang's mind, being the insolent brat that it is, keeps on torturing her by replaying the events of the day.

The trainwreck of a day, with too many downs and little to no ups.

Stealing an Atlas ship. Going to the connection tower with Blake. An ambush. Adam. Having to fight Adam. Blake, looking at her with that look in her eyes, a look Yang seen dozens of times before; a look of guilt, only this time, it was amplified, and its filters were broken and Yang had the pleasure to see just how broken she is, just how much Blake blames herself for a tragedy that had befallen upon her.

Yang thought she'd hit rock bottom once she'd been 'unarmed'. Turns out, someone could and did decide to grab a shovel and a pickaxe and dig her unending pitch black of a grave deeper.

To Fight Adam. To confront him. Him, sneering at her, mocking her, smiling because he knew the damage he had caused, and how much hope he'd stolen from her.

Fighting. Losing the fight. Red. Seeing. So many red. Too many. The red that were her eyes. The red that was her world.

The red that was him.

The red that was his blood.

Standing, near the edge. Adam, teetering back. His legs, unable to stop themselves from taking one step back, and another, and another.

And just like that, her haunting nightmare fell into its demise.

Yang doesn't remember waking up. Hell, she doesn't even remember falling asleep. She vaguely recalls sitting up in her bed, staring at nothing, and standing up.

She blinks and looks down at the bag that contains her metal arm. It no longer shines with newness, nor is every edge smooth with no hint of a scratch.

It's old. It's worn. It's fought alongside her, and protected her.

She doesn't merge it with the flesh of her skin. She leaves it there, in the dark, surrounded by dust and for it to gather more dust.

_That metal machine is not, nor will it ever be my arm._

She hears her bare feet hitting the oaky woods of the floor, and the wobble of the surface the contact causes.

She sees the midnight of Atlas in all of its glory, and how bright it is, and she walks the other direction, until she no longer faces the buzzling city, but the whispering woods.

She smells the earth and the soil and the trees.

And she hears a sob.

She walks faster.

And her walk turns into a jog as she realizes who those sobs belong to.

Her feet taint themselves with brown and green as they meet a combination of roots and grass. Not that she cares. Her hands are tainted with the blood that's red like roses; dirt is the last thing she fears, now that she's familiar with the existence of Gods and Magic and Salem.

Yang stops.

The moon, never in one piece, casts a dim, almost non-existent light, blue in hue.

The shadows dance, like the flow of water.

Her heart twists.

It's Blake.

Because of course it's Blake. Who else would be up this late and spending the night curled up on a tree?

Yang hears her sob again, and she freezes as a thought occurs to her; _what will she think of me if she saw me staring at her like some kind of freak?_

Yet she can't leave her like this, too. Even if it's for the best, it's never in her conscience not to help, courtesy of her dad and mom's - her real mom, not Raven - gentleness and soft-spoken words of what it means to do and be good.

She steps on a twig, and lets it crack loudly as a means to announce her presence.

Blake looks at her from above, and her chest tugs back because oh yeah, she forgot Faunus has night vision, ergo, her eyes glow in the dark.

Yang wonders how she's missed it years ago, back at Beacon. Shining eyes aren't just something people miss that easily.

But then again, she was different back then.

She was happy.

Blake looks at her and says nothing. She stares questioningly.

Yang considers leaving her then, because it's kind of embarrassing and creepy to just stare at her like that, but that's when she notices the glossiness in her eyes.

"Mind if I join you?"

"You should be sleeping."

It's touching, how much she fusses over Yang. Yet it angers her as well, because she's no baby and she's been taking care of herself plenty with naught a scratch.

Yang crosses her arms and shifts her weight to her other foot. "Well, you should too." Yang tries to give her a glare, but she knows it doesn't really count as a glare to begin with. Yang doesn't want to give her a glare. She wants to give a smile, a hug, and a pun people label as shitty but really is amazing.

"Yet I'm not."

There's a tone to how she says it that brings a shiver out from her, in the depths of her chest, almost like a rumble.

Sometimes, Yang forgets how haunting her partner can be.

Then moments like these - always fleeting and far too soon to comprehend - exists that reminds her of it and many more things.

Turns out, climbing with one hand is real fucking hard, and once she's made it to Blake's level, she vows to herself never to do it again, and wonders why she didn't just ask Blake to come down.

Welp. Too late now.

She sits down next to her, surprised and grateful at how sturdy the branch is.

"So…"

"I'm sorry."

Yang blinks and turns to her. "What?"

Blake sobs, hugs herself tighter, and sobs again. "For what he did to you. What he did to us." Blake looks up and whimpers, and Yang's heart may or may not sink and drown. "I should've never let him hurt you. Or anyone. I should've been stronger. Better."

Yang blinks again. Her throat is heavy. Her everything is heavy.

She looks down and marvels at how far up she is. Her gaze traces to the side, into the city of Atlas, the capital of the rich and dastardly. It almost looks like the night sky, with little lights flickering and a blue hue painting everything over and the black shadow trailing behind. Only, the sky isn't artificial. Atlas is.

She should probably give her a pep-talk. Tell her that she's not at fault, and she shouldn't blame herself, and comfort her.

"I should've been better, too," she says with a shrug. She senses Blake boring her eyes onto her from the side and smiles. "I mean, I just went up to him and tried to punch him without even thinking. It's a wonder how I'm still alive until now."

"Yang. _Don't_."

The way her voice trembles makes it seem like the very idea brings terror into her core.

Yang looks at her. She doesn't know what Blake sees in her. Whatever it is, it shocks her. Her eyebrows pull up, her jaw pushes down, and the sad light in her eyes glimmers brighter.

"It's true, though." The useless limb that used to be her arms burns down to the non-existing tips of fingers. "No matter how much I keep on lying to everyone, telling them that I'm fine, I'm great, I'm armed and I'm ready-" she scoffs at her own pun. "It doesn't change the fact that I'm not. And I don't think I'll ever be. Not completely."

She was never the kind to be grim. Nor pessimistic. Nor overall pissed at everything. That's Blake's job.

"I guess so…"

She took a life today.

They both did.

As a teenager, killing anything other than Grimm was a thought that never once crossed her mind. When it came to people, all she thought of was punching them until they were unconscious.

She's nauseous.

She doesn't feel all that different. She's still her, albeit quieter, heavier, bleaker. She's not sure she's changed.

But she's sure the world did change once Adam heaved his last breath.

"I thought of giving up," she hears Blake say. "Before Adam. Even before Beacon. Just…" a shuddering breath "... running back to my parents and let them take care of everything."

She smiles wistfully at the thought. "That wouldn't be giving up."

"Then what would it be?"

"Making sense."

She stares for a long moment before she laughs. Yang soon joins her. It's the kind of laugh the buzzes around her head.

The branch beneath them quivers and wobbles. One of them should care.

Blake stands up. One foot plants itself to the wood, and the other hovers closely by. She sighs and the wind picks up its intensity and Yang is mesmerized by the way her hair flows.

She wishes she has night vision so she can capture this moment better in her mind.

"I think I love you," she says, and think she should regret it, but doesn't.

She looks down to her. Yang leans back and lets out a small sigh, feeling the frosty air escape from her mouth and trail away like invisible smoke.

"You think?" She cocks her head to the side.

Her arm twitches. "Yeah."

Blake looks up to the city. Yang's not sure what she sees, as she can't see well in the dark, but maybe Blake is smiling. "Weird."

"Huh?"

"Weird, considering that I ruined your life."

She didn't. "Maybe."

She looks at Yang again, and her shoulders sag down, like two heavy sacks of flour. "I wish you hated me."

There is, and will always be, a part of her that does. And that part hates everyone as well. And it hates herself the most. "It's kind of hard, 'specially since you're good."

She snorts. "Really?"

Yang rolls her eyes. "Well, you're better than you think. That's for sure."

Aren't love confessions supposed to be romantic? From the cheesy romantic movies she secretly loves and the angsty romantic books she secretly reads, it's ought to be full of lust, or warmth, or happiness, or anger, or- something.

It's not supposed to be empty.

Blake stares at her like she thinks she's this odd predicament. Yang can't keep staring at her. Not until forever. She tries to, either way.

And she's crouching down, down to her level, and she says, "I'm going to kiss you," not like a request or permission, and Yang makes a soft sound at the back of her throat when the pair of lips that crashes into hers makes her forget.

The kiss is hungry, and neither hot nor cold. Her arm stays where it is. Blake's nails claw into her scalp and drags her deeper.

It's over.

And the branch weighs down for one second, and she's far from Yang.

There's no proof that she's kissed her.

Yang looks down. Nothing washes over her. Nothing but faint, muddled resignation. Resignation over what? She knows not. She knows only that it's there, looming, like a grey cloud that's about to darken and ruin her world with darkness and rain and thunder.

"I miss Adam," she says, and- _oh_, there comes the first raindrop.

"I know."

"I loved him." Blake's voice cracks. Her own words disgusts her, Yang can tell.

Yang pauses and roughens, less like a porcelain doll and more like a carved statue made out of rocks and metals and wires. "I know."

Because how can she not?

Because it's so obvious, since Beacon, that Blake misses someone with spiky hair and great figure and a mask and a sword. It never manifested through words. Blake has never been a talker.

It manifested through her drawings, instead. Either doodles or detailed sketches or off-handed, mindless spirals. And the way she sometimes looked at a far distance, or a sword, or the words betrayal and love like she's far too familiar with them.

Yang paid attention. Of course she did. She was in love with her, even then.

"I'd like to go back to my room," she says, turns her head to the side, away from her, and soon her whole body. "Goodnight, Yang."

Yang jumps into a standing position, pins her to the body of the tree, says "no" like a growl, and kisses her.

Blake doesn't kiss back. She should pull away. She kisses deeper until she can't kiss her anymore.

"I'm tired, Yang."

She doesn't say what she's tired of. She doesn't need to.

"I'm not Adam."

"Sometimes you are."

Yang pauses, and she sees why.

Blake stiffens like she expects her to be angry.

She is angry. She's not sure what you're angry at. The truth? Blake? Herself? None of those things? Or all?

Then again, she's always been angry the moment Death introduces itself through her life by taking her mother from her.

She decides it matters not and kisses Blake again.

And Blake tastes nice. She's not all soft and delicate, nor is she all rough and calloused. She's somewhere in-between.

Yang, however, is all rough and calloused, because she's angry, and she wants to forget.

The world in the night is quiet and doesn't bother them. It keeps to itself. It cares not whether they keep kissing one another or pull away to finally rest. It cares not about their insomnia and confessions.

It simply is.


End file.
